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Although all who place their faith in Christ are eternally saved, many believers experience little-to-no growth beyond this entry point, which only marks the beginning of the blessed spiritual life God has for us. Instead of growing in Christlikeness and victory over sin, these Christians remain severely hindered by their fleshly desires, habitual sins, and ungodly attitudes. Although many of these struggling believers strive to serve in church or ministry, they find that their works exhaust them, are driven by selfish motives, or fail to spiritually impact others. These crippling hindrances occur because all of us are initially unfit to serve God. As the Scriptures reveal, the only way we can make ourselves available to be used by Him is to completely surrender ourselves to Him.
The contrast between soulish and surrendered servitude is demonstrated in Genesis 4:1-5 with the account of Cain and Abel. Here, the two brothers grew up with differing occupations, with the former becoming a farmer and the latter raising sheep. When the two came of age, they each went before the Lord with a sacrifice. Although the Lord required a blood sacrifice for sin--a pattern He established in Genesis 3:21--Cain foolishly gave an improper offering with his crops while Abel obediently sacrificed the best of his sheep. Despite the former brother's offering undoubtedly coming from many months of hard labor, it was nevertheless displeasing to God because of his disobedience and pride. As the differing results of Cain's and Abel's offerings demonstrate, failing to surrender to God's will and Word renders us unfit for serving Him.
This is due to the unignorable hindrances an unsurrendered life creates. One of these is that it pollutes our motives for serving. When our thoughts and will are apart from God's, our service will often be done with a self-centered agenda rather than sincere worship and love for Him. Another hindrance is that this life cannot serve God through the spirit. Instead, it often attempts in vain to serve Him through the flesh, despite how its works only offend God and cannot be used by Him. One other issue unsurrendered service causes is that it requires unnecessary striving. Because living in the flesh requires us to rely on our own strength, serving in this manner brings exhaustion that can only be avoided by depending on God's perfect strength and providence. Thus, because the outer man (our flesh) cannot sincerely serve and worship God, it must be broken via complete surrender to allow our inner man (our spirit) to do so.
Thankfully, the Scriptures reveal how to allow this lifelong work of surrender to transform our lives. First, Galatians 2:20 provides the necessary mindset for surrender: Christ crucified our old life, and our new life is His. Because He has purchased us with His life, our only proper response is to surrender everything to Him. Next, 1 Peter 5:6 exhorts us to adopt a humble and selfless attitude before God. Doing this not only makes us usable to Him and brings Him glory but will also allow Him to exalt us in His perfect timing. Finally, Luke 9:23 notes that surrender to God can only happen when we daily deny ourselves through taking up our cross each day. In doing this by disassociating ourselves from our old lives in the flesh, we enable God to replace its desires and attitudes with His. It is this radical change in mindset, attitude, and behavior that continually breaks the outer man and makes us increasingly available to wholeheartedly serve God through our inner man.
Placed before all believers today is a crucial decision represented by Cain and Abel's account. We can either vainly strive to serve God in the flesh like Cain with works that only offend Him, or we can like Abel daily surrender ourselves to Him so that our mindset, attitudes, and behavior allow His Spirit to fully work in and through us. It is this latter choice that allows our works, worship, and witness to truly honor God, draw the lost to Christ, and bring true, lasting change in our communities.
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